From the Editor

At Drive, we?ve just capped off our busiest week of the year: testing for Car of the Year.

09 November 2012Toby Hagon

At Drive, we?ve just capped off our busiest week of the year: testing for Car of the Year.

Our annual COTY testing is an exhaustive process, this year involving 39 new cars on the market. Finalists included tiny city hatchbacks, small cars and family friendly sports utility vehicles all the way through to luxury cars, utes and some of the fastest performance cars money can buy.

Some of the cars aren?t even on sale yet and one maker flew out a car ? at great expense ? so it could take part in our tests.

As with previous years, the testing takes into account every new car on the market, rather than singling out models that have been released in the previous 12 months. We consider it theultimate consumer guide to the busy new-car market.

As always, the testing threw up some surprises. Some cars we expected to do better didn?t quite hit the mark for some of Australia?s most authoritative motoring experts. Others exceeded it comfortably and went on to take out one of the 13 categories.

During the next few weeks, we?re detailing some of the finalists. But for the announcement of all the winners, visit drive.com.au on the evening of November 28.